Describe: The two artifacts that is included are the Professional Development Plan and the Inquiry Project. The Professional Development Plan will target diverse populations and the inquiry plan addresses the needs of students who do not have the requirements for graduation.  The first artifact was not a group assignment so I cannot reflect on any of the group dynamics that would have impact the completion of this assignment. However, there were some issues that impacted me completing this project. The first difficulty that I experience was identifying a professional development that would impact teachers at my school in meaningful ways. We are a consortium school and as a completing of portfolio is necessary to graduate and so this professional development needed to be centered on the work that students are completing in classrooms. I was able to use this attribute of our school to create a professional development plan that provides a time and space for teachers to “look” at student work and figure out strategies that would make them successful in completing the individual projects. Another problem that I encountered with this assignment was the use of data. Fannie Lou Hamer is a school that is part of the Coalition of Essential Schools. As a result of this there is a waiver from the regents, therefore that data that I was able to use based on students that completed the required pieces for the portfolio requirement. This was difficult for me to aggregate because of the organizational level of Fannie Lou. We are separated by houses therefore I had to aggregate the data base don individual houses and from that decide which “house” this PD should be implemented first. However, the second assignment was a group assessment and we divided the tasks and were able to complete the assignment. Unlike the issues that arose for me when completing the PD Project gathering and analyzing data for the inquiry project was not difficult.

Analyze: These two artifacts relates to the ELCC standards below. 

a. 6.1 Understand the Larger Context- The two artifacts has specific goals that took into consideration that the issues that address the political, social, economic, legal and cultural of all students for example, there are clear criteria and objective for the professional plan; Students in a specific ICT and self-contained classrooms. There are two self-contained classrooms and two ICT classrooms. Teachers will select 4 students from the self-contained and 4 students in the ICT classrooms linking that clear objective. In the inquiry plan, high school credit accumulation with the importance of increasing graduation role was the main focus.

         b. 6.2 Respond to the Larger Context-In response to the goals of both artifacts strategies and solutions were discussed together with method for evaluation. For example in the inquiry plan studies are assigned an advisory who is the connection between home and school, monies are allocated for other services that students might need based on their economic, cultural and educational background. Moreover, these artifacts also address state and federal policies for example in the inquiry plan targets students who are at high risk for dropping out or not graduating base on their core subjects scores.

         c. 6.3 Influence the Larger Context- The artifacts addresses the questions of what school leaders can do to improve student achievement taking into considerations the supports tat teachers and parents would need. In addition on the district level they discuses the need for closing the achievement gap –increasing graduation rate and increasing literacy across all content areas.

Appraise: As an educational leaders these two artifacts highlight the importance of addressing the needs of all students, It is a fact that the demographics of our schools are changing, our students are individuals with specific needs and we need to figure ways in which we can support them and close the achievement gap. I believe that the only way this can be done is by “knowing” student well. I believe that this can be done when we begin to look at student work and modify curricula that it embodies

Transform: As educators our role is to provide our students with an education that will enable to become productive citizens in society. We need to provide for them the critical thinking and problem solving skills. The only way this can be done is if we look at all students on a personalized level and identify strategies that can move them forward. This can only be done when we as educators being reflective of our practice and of our students. For this to happen we then need to work collaboratively to enact them. This PD is a safe space for this collaboration and reflection to take place, where teachers are not judged but students’ work becomes the central focus and ways to better their learning is the direction to go in.

  Also, an educator one of my aims is create a staff, through hiring and development, committed to effective practices of distributed leadership and democratic schooling. Each staff member will be nested in a number of working groups that will provide areas for teacher leadership, initiative, and professional development, and which will be used to organize key responsibilities required to operate the school. A staff should be a community of adult learners that explicitly reflects the learning environment we want for our students. It is through adult learning that we will build both the teaching capacity of our school and staff commitment to our vision of education. Just as we meet the academic needs of students as individuals while moving our school community to meet high academic standards, we will personalize the support our teachers need to develop professionally.